| With Patel's convincing, Nehru did not quit | | | Er. Jitender Kohli | 1/16/2016 11:42:25 PM |
| Presently the congress is working under the command of one family with the confidence that its survival is with that. This psyche with congress is generated by this family from the day Jawaharlal Nehru after independence took over its command. This was turned from an organization to political party disobeying instructions of Mahatma Gandhi who had instructed to disband it to form a new political party with other title. Jawaharlal Nehru was the instrumental to keep this name intact to use for political gains. This organization was created by the British whose necessity was to prove their success through the Indian English knowing rich the history tells.
The British after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and the transfer of India from East India Company to British Empire, through British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume planned and On 28 December 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay, with 72 delegates in attendance. Hume assumed office as the General Secretary and Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee of Calcutta was elected President. Besides Hume, two additional British members (both Scottish civil servants) were members of the founding group, William Wedderburn and Justice (later, Sir) John Jardine. The other members were mostly Hindus from the Bombay and Madras Presidencies. It was created to form a platform for civic and political dialogue of educated Indians with the British Empire with a goal to support and justify its governance of India with the aid of English-educated Indians, who would be familiar and friendly to British culture and political thinking. The Congress grew and survived in the era of undisputed British hegemony, was through the patronage of British authorities, Anglo-Indians, and a rising Indian, English language educated, class.
Many Muslim leaders, like the prominent educationalist Syed Ahmed Khan, viewed the Congress negatively, owing to its membership being dominated by Hindus. Orthodox Hindu community and religious leaders were also averse, seeing the Congress as supportive of Western cultural invasion.
The ordinary people of India were not informed of or concerned about its existence on the whole, for the Congress never attempted to address the issues of poverty, lack of health care, social oppression, and the prejudiced negligence of the people's concerns by British authorities. The perception of bodies like the Congress was that of an elitist, then educated and wealthy people's institution.
But Indian man Mohandas Gandhi a lawyer with another way was destined to lead the Congress and the Indian struggle with the concept of non-violence, civil disobedience; he coined a term, Satyagraha.
In the years after the World War, the membership of the Congress expanded considerably, A whole new generation of leaders arose from different parts of India, who were committed Gandhians, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Narhari Parikh, Mahadev Desai as well as hot-blooded nationalists aroused by Gandhi's active leadership, Chittaranjan Das, Subhash Chandra Bose, Srinivasa Iyengar. Gandhi transformed the Congress from an elitist party based in the cities, to an organization of the people.
According to one approach, the traditionalist point of view, though not in a political sense, was represented in Congressmen like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, Purushottam Das Tandon, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Maulana Azad, who were also associates and followers of Gandhi. Their organizational strength, achieved through leading the clashes with the government, was undisputed and proven when despite winning the 1939 election, Bose resigned the Congress presidency. A year earlier, in the 1938 election, however, Bose had been elected with the support of Gandhi. Differences arose in 1939 on whether Bose should have a second term. Jawaharlal Nehru, who Gandhi had always preferred to Bose, had had a second term earlier. Still when he set up his Indian National Army in South-east Asia during the Second World War, he invoked Gandhi's name and hailed him as the Father of The Nation.
Within the Congress, the Partition was opposed by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Dr. Khan Sahib and Congressmen from the provinces that would inevitably become parts of Pakistan. Maulana Azad opposed partition in principle, but did not wish to impede the national leadership; preferred to stay with Indian side.
In 1947, the Congress presidency passed upon Jivatram Kripalani, a veteran Gandhian and ally of both Nehru and Patel India's duumvirate expressed neutrality and full support to the elected winner of the 1947, 1948 and 1949 presidential races.
However, a tug of war began between Nehru and his socialist wing, and Patel and Congress traditionalists broke out in 1950's race. Nehru lobbied intensely to oppose the candidacy of Purushottam Das Tandon, whom he perceived as a Hindu revivalist with "problematic" views on Hindu-Muslim relations. Nehru openly backed Kripalani to oppose Tandon but neglected courtesy to Patel upon the question.
With Patel's tacit support Tandon won a tight contest, and Nehru threatened to resign. With Patel's convincing, Nehru did not quit.
However, with Patel's death in 1950, the balance shifted permanently in Nehru's favor. Kripalani, C. Rajagopalachari and Tandon were marginalized, and the Congress Party's election fortunes began depending solely on Nehru's leadership and popularity. With the 1952 election sweep, the Congress became India's main political party. After Nehru his daughter Indira Gandhi advanced her dictatorial control over congress and national politics. She was debarred for six years for the political activities by the Honourable Court and was also expelled from the Congress party by its senior member's body. She imposed emergency on the nation suspending all the governing system grabbing exclusive command had also formed Congress (Indira) political party later managing the party title attained for it. She also, without taking political parties or nation in confidence buried a capsule keeping certain material to make history of family for the next centuries to dig out.
This was opposed by the nation and was extracted but what it had was not disclosed to the nation.
The family kept its personal occupation to this day which slowly but surely converted it to the commercial hub. Many corruption scandals are alleged or exposed and some are being contested in court of law, few being investigated and some are in pipeline for it. The congress is desperately fighting for not only political survival but to get relief from these scandals. This party is instrumental in twice stalling parliament sessions, blocking national development growth process and spreading issue, non-issues problems to instigate people against the national government.
The nationalist society is watching the congressmen to think over to restore the pre-partition honour of this party by making it democrat refusing the dynastic system of the party.
The author is a senior columnist, can be contacted on -- [email protected] |
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